Tag: ask

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Just to clarify that second picture on the Dragon Eternity post. They’re both wearing the same thing. The 2 pictures of the man and woman were put next together for comparison, but the armor sets and stuff were put on either side to indicate the set of armor.

haferflocken asked bikiniarmorbattledamage:
Hi, on your recent post for Dragon Eternity, the man is wearing a breastplate and pants- both characters are wearing all the equipment in the icons surrounding them.
wincenworks asked bikiniarmorbattledamage:
I’m pretty sure the layout of items is actually supposed to show that both of them have everything… just apparently the female warrior’s gear becomes invisible.
Point taken. Thank you, friends, for clearing that up!
Sorry, for I got confused by the image’s divided composition 🙁
Edited the post in question to clear things out.
Everyone who reblogged it from me, PLEASE EDIT THE POST to prevent further confusion!
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I don’t know I never understood worrying about uncomfortable on a character that doesn’t show it on their face nor when it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else in the story. I also feel like you can’t simply say that a character with partial nudity is automatically nothing but ogle bait. I don’t see why looking at the characters actions overall and how the story treats her not artstyle wise but event wise isn’t more important. Then worrying about her back breaking despite her moving around fine.

I literally answered everything you’re trying to argue about in my last post. You’re trying really hard to be the smart one here… by blatantly ignoring everything I wrote.

Go read my previous answer to you. Ten times. If that doesn’t help, have someone read it to you.

Reading comprehension is your friend. I can not help you otherwise.

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You know these kind of things always make me go “What?” when i see them because I don’t play mmos to be restricted to full covering and boring plate armor.I rarely play guys because of that and I enjoy having non practical armor in game. That’s another thing I never get the need for practicality in something where non of the weapons are practicable, the damage isn’t realistic and non of the actions that characters can take are even close to those in real life.

First of all, should I assume that by “these kind of things” you mean this site? Uh, okay?

I feel like you missed the whole point of this blog.
You personally prefer bikini armor and find it more interesting than full-covering, realistic one? More power to you! Then again, it’s not about you and your personal preferences.

It’s about pervasive trends of how media depicts women almost exclusively in objectifying ways and offers no alternative to this objectification. Even if said media is supposedly interactive and customizable (video games, especially RPGs of all kinds).
BABD blog is devoted to the fact of how those trends are especially obvious when combat-based female characters are depicted.

I’m not advocating for covering every female warrior from head to toe (if you haven’t noticed), but for some logic and consistency.

You see, there is such thing as Willing Suspension of Disbelief, the untold agreement between the author and the audience that helps to experience immersion in the fiction.
The audience intuitively agrees to overlook unrealistic/fantastic aspects of experienced fiction as long as they make sense in the narrative. It does not mean they uncritically assume everything out of ordinary to be normal.
If the author doesn’t create consistent rules for their world of fiction, the illusion of reality fails and the audience can not suspend their disbelief anymore.

So really, there’s no “It’s just fiction, so don’t expect gritty realism from it” card to play. Again I’m going to refer a reply I reblogged some time ago from simonjadis:

A naturalistic story tells a story that is completely plausible in our world. No wizards, no dragons, no secret vampires, no alien invasions. Telling a realistic story is telling a story that is logical and consistent and makes sense (even if the setting is in a fictional world or in a reality very different from our own).

This is usually the case with skimpy armor. The point of armor is to provide physical barrier, protection from bodily damage in combat.

For instance, a bikini made out of chainmal (or any other armor material) is just a weird (and possibly uncomfortable) bikini, not an armor. It serves the purpose of a bikini (cover nipples and crotch!), not of the amor (protect everything that can be slashed or stabbed!).
So in the setting where people wear armor for the same reason as in the real world, a knight in a metal bikini looks simply ridiculous, and, again, probably can not move without major discomfort.
As for the settings that justify skimpy battle outfit with magic/science/whatever that can create protective barrier… Yeah, makes sense AS LONG AS EVERYONE’S COSTUME IS LIKE THAT. If the same magic armor looks completely regular for guys, but takes form of underwear/bikini/whateverthehellthisis for women, then we face a double standard which can not be justified in-story.

There’s also the issue of skimpy armor supposedly symbolizing empowerment or badassery of a female character.
The thing is, there’s nothing inherently empowering (or sexual, but that’s another story) about partial nudity. There’s a bigger issue of cultural context behind it.
If you stop to think why most half-naked warrior women look like lady on the left, not like one on the right, you’ll understand how female nudity is used to be ogled; not to symbolize power, like male nudity.

Then again, some heroines may be characterized to feel empowered by being sexual (Emma Frost and Bayonetta are most frequently brought up as examples), but the message fails through if everyone around them is designed to look equally sexual, despite having different personality and views on that.
Just like those characters, you personally are completely free to read non-practical costumes in MMOs as attractive/empowering, but those who have different opinion should be given the choice between any level of practicality, especially since character customization is a big part of roleplaying game experience.

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Incidentally I have an issue of ‘La geste des chevaliers dragons’ in my reference pile, because the cityscapes and castles are fantastic, I just thought I should point out that the characters wearing very little armour tend to be savagely eviscerated for their stupidity, not that it isn’t incredibly fan servicy and ridiculous despite that, but at least there are no inexplicably impervious navels.

As Ami of eschergirls and lady-knight- (in her comment) noted, it seems like Ange intended their comic to be subversive of fantasy clichés (so female virgins slay dragons instead of being kidnapped by them), but the execution indulges in harmful narratives (like demonizing women’s sexuality).

I don’t really think that letting scantily-clad warriors die for drama justifies making them scantily-clad in the first place.

It may work in comedy, but La geste des chevaliers dragons (or at least the first issue, the only one I managed to read) never makes fun of those costumes, just assumes we’re supposed to accept them as a sign of female empowerment or some other misogynistic bullshit.

The only character that commented on Jaïna’s non-armor was framed as a sexist dude who’s jealous of dragon slayer’s status, so… yeah, the readers probably weren’t supposed to agree with him.

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I liked the woman in the picture, but I must ask, wouldn’t D-cups be as restricting on a woman who needs to fight? Even if it was shaped like the armor in the picture, the breasts would cut into her range of motion and I would think it would render archery to be rather difficult. Anyway, they are mostly fat cells and sword practice involves a lot of upper body exercise. Still fascinating concept and it answered my question I never knew I had about what armor for women should look like.

REFERENCING the post you’re referring to with a link or description is your friend!
“The picture” is usually not enough to tell what you’re commenting on in my askbox.

I can only assume you’re referring to this post, as it is the most recent one and mentions D-cups.
Though I feel like I’m not the person the question should be addressed to, as I reblogged it from new Repair-Her-Armor admin blog and considering the woman from the image has a tumblr account too; but I’ll try my best to answer.

I’m pretty sure Astro from ria-RHA was referring to D-cups solely in the context of sex-appeal, as the original question was about designing a female character who’s well-protected and attractive to (straight) men at the same time.

First of all, let us remember that women usually don’t decide how big their chests are. And women of all sizes (that includes breasts) are capable of impressive physical fits that would make them excellent fighters:

Second, it is true that big breasts may come in the way while in fight, but a well-designed armor paired with a decent underwear (sports bra) should flatten them enough without being uncomfortable. A well-trained sportswoman/female warrior would most likely know how to handle a fight without her own body causing inconvenience to her.

Also keep in mind that weight loss (caused, for example, by swordfight training) can, in some cases, reduce cup size.

image

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ria-rha:

killerlolita asked:
How exactly does covering up a character show that sexy outfits aren’t empowering exactly? That and how does dressing up male characters in sexy outfits making a point?
It’d be easy to ask the inverse: how does dressing up female characters in revealing outfits make them empowered?
To answer this question we’re going to do an exercise that anyone familiar with the internet can participate in. First: imagine an adorable kitten (if you’re having trouble, Google images is rife with them… like I said: internet). Now, imagine that adorable kitten wielding a weapon (oh hey Google). Are these cats now empowered? Or has the situation gone from visually appealing to funny?
That’s what most female character design does: creates a juxtaposition of eye candy that thinks just because it’s started wielding weapons and calling itself tough, suddenly it’s empowered. It isn’t. It’s a cat with a lightsaber.
As for how dressing up a male character in clothes usually reserved for their female counterparts makes a point, well, mostly it helps show how ridiculous these outfits (and also the way the women are generally posed) are. We’re so used to seeing our female characters looking (and acting) this way, that it often doesn’t register. It helps get people asking why it’s okay for a woman to go into battle like this, but it’s funny when a man does.
-Staci

PREACH!

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On some redesigned female armor I see plackart designed as V-shaped (for example gingerhaze’s purple-white-pink platemail, recently featured at BABD). It looks better aesthetically but on historical armor I saw plackart designed as upside-down V-shaped (for example look at wikipedia article about plackart). I wonder if straight V-shaped plackart which I see a lot in fictional armor has same functionality as a historical prototype.

Frankly, I have no idea about significance of V-shape in regards of realistic plate armor (all I learned about armor design was through running this blog). Seems like your question is more suited for an armorer, like Ryan ‘Jabberwock’ who wrote this article.

What’s significant in the post you’re referring to is this bit gingerhaze wrote (some parts bolded for emphasis):

Would this actually work in real life as real armor? Probably not? But I’m not sure that’s the most important thing to focus on, unless you’re making a gritty, realistic, historically-accurate work. For fantasy? COOLNESS is what counts. I’m all for seeing non-sexualized, diverse ladytypes with functional armor, as long as the coolness factor doesn’t get lost!

In fiction, believability based on realism is much more important than sticking to straight-up realism. As simonjadis says in a reply I reblogged some time ago:

A naturalistic story tells a story that is completely plausible in our world. No wizards, no dragons, no secret vampires, no alien invasions. Telling a realistic story is telling a story that is logical and consistent and makes sense (even if the setting is in a fictional world or in a reality very different from our own).

And that’s one of the basic things BABD aims for: promoting female warriors who dress in believable and protective manner, not necessarily realistic/naturalistic.

We criticize bikini armors, boobplates etc. not specifically because they’re historically inaccurate (which they are, but so are dragons and orcs). We criticize them because they’re inconsistent with how most fictional settings work.